AP Exclusive: Lie detectors trip applicants at border agencySAN DIEGO — David Kirk was a career Marine pilot with a top-secret security clearance and a record of flying classified missions. He was in the cockpit when President George W. Bush and Vice Presidents Dick Cheney and Joe Biden traveled around the nation's capital by helicopter. With credentials like that, Kirk was stunned to fail a lie detector when he applied for a pilot's job with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which guards 6,000 miles...

National park visits hits record high for 3rd straight yearSALT LAKE CITY — Visits to U.S. national parks set a record in 2016 for the third consecutive year as landmarks such Zion, Yellowstone and Rocky Mountain experienced historic levels of popularity that brought collateral headaches stemming from overcrowded roads and trails and increasing visitor misbehavior. At many parks, visitors waited an hour or more in cars to get through entrance gates and then spent the day trying to outmaneuver fellow v...

Fish and chirps? Crickets make leap in demand as a proteinWILLISTON, Vt. — At Tomorrow's Harvest farm, you won't find acres of land on which animals graze, or rows of corn, or bales of hay. Just stacks of boxes in a basement and the summery song of thousands of chirping crickets. It's one of a growing number of operations raising crickets for human consumption that these farmers say is more ecologically sound than meat but acknowledge is sure to bug some people out. Once consumers get beyond the ick ...

Who are the 8 richest people? All men, mostly AmericansLONDON (AP) — The eight individuals who own as much as half of the rest of the planet are all men, and have largely made their fortunes in technology. Most are American, with one European and one Mexican in the mix. Several have pledged to give it all to charity. The eight tycoons' net worth, as calculated by Forbes magazine, was cited Monday by anti-poverty activists Oxfam in a report highlighting income inequality. Although most of them will...

King Day highlights transition from Obama to TrumpATLANTA — As Americans celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights leaders and activists are trying to reconcile the transition from the nation's first black president to a president-elect still struggling to connect with most non-white voters. King's daughter on Monday encouraged Americans to fight for the slain civil rights leader's vision of love and justice "no matter who is in the White House." In Atlanta, Bernice King ad...

APNewsBreak: Ringling Bros. circus to close after 146 yearsELLENTON, Fla. — After 146 years, the curtain is coming down on "The Greatest Show on Earth." The owner of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus told The Associated Press that the show will close forever in May. The iconic American spectacle was felled by a variety of factors, company executives say. Declining attendance combined with high operating costs, along with changing public tastes and prolonged battles with animal rights group...

Protesters across US decry Trump's anti-immigrant stance WASHINGTON — Protesters gathered Saturday to support immigrant rights at rallies around the U.S., denouncing President-elect Donald Trump for his anti-immigrant rhetoric and his pledges to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border and to crack down on Muslims entering the country. "We are not going to allow Donald Trump to bury the Statue of Liberty," Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, told a standing-room-only crowd at historic African...

Parties, protests to take over DC for Trump's inaugurationWASHINGTON — Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to clog the nation's capital for Donald Trump's inauguration and a major demonstration the day after. How many will actually arrive to party or protest is an open question. Officials estimate that 800,000 to 900,000 people will be present Friday for the inauguration, a celebration that takes over the city, closing roads, taxing the city's Metro transit system and making getting around d...

Watchdog to probe Comey's, FBI's actions before election WASHINGTON— In yet another aftershock from the chaotic presidential campaign, the Justice Department inspector general opened an investigation Thursday into department and FBI actions before the election, including whether FBI Director James Comey followed established policies in the email investigation of Hillary Clinton. Democrats have blamed Comey's handling of the inquiry into Clinton's use of a private email server, and his late-October p...

What are the odds? Mom, dad, son all share a birthdayLuke and Hillary Gardner never have a problem remembering each other's birthday. After all, the husband and wife were born the same day. And so was their son, 27 years later this past December. The odds of that happening are about one in 133,000, statisticians say. And that's a lot less likely than getting hit by lightning sometime in your lifetime, which some put at roughly one in 12,000. They weren't aiming at a joint birthday when their son...

No pocket change: Man delivers 300,000 pennies to DMVLEBANON, Va. — Now, that's a lot of change. A Virginia man used 300,000 pennies to pay sales tax on two cars at the Department of Motor Vehicles. The Bristol Herald Courier reports (http://bit.ly/2jlMLsp) that Nick Stafford delivered five wheelbarrows full of change, mostly pennies, at the DMW office in Lebanon, Virginia, on Wednesday. The coins weighed in at 1,600 pounds. Stafford said he paid in coins to "inconvenience" the DMV. Stafford was...

The Latest: Some activists unhappy with Chicago police probeCHICAGO — The Latest on the U.S. Department of Justice's report from its yearlong investigation into the Chicago Police Department (all times local): 2:40 p.m. Some black activists are disappointed with the Justice Department's civil rights investigation of the Chicago Police Department, saying they don't think it will protect minorities. The investigation report was released Friday. It found that the department has violated the constitutional...

Millennials are falling behind their boomer parentsSOUTH MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin — Baby Boomers: your millennial children are worse off than you. With a median household income of $40,581, millennials earn 20 percent less than boomers did at the same stage of life, despite being better educated, according to a new analysis of Federal Reserve data by the advocacy group Young Invincibles. The analysis being released Friday gives concrete details about a troubling generational divide that helps to e...

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By JOSH BOAK and CARRIE ANTLFINGERThe Courier Your Messenger For The River Valley

Trump raises millions to cover inauguration's steep costsWASHINGTON — The inauguration of a new president requires the recitation of a 35-word oath. That's it. Dress it up with some hoopla and glitz, though, and pretty soon you're talking real money. Donald Trump will have it to spend. Trump's Presidential Inaugural Committee has raised a record $90 million-plus in private donations, far more than President Barack Obama's two inaugural committees. They collected $55 million in 2009 and $43 million i...

Rusty patched bumblebee now an endangered speciesTRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — The rusty patched bumblebee has become the first bee species in the continental U.S. to be declared endangered after suffering a dramatic population decline over the past 20 years, federal officials said Tuesday. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service first told The Associated Press it was adding the bee to the endangered list before a news release was issued. That means there will be a recovery plan to encourage people to p...

World Bank forecasting brighter prospects for 2017WASHINGTON — The World Bank is forecasting the global economy will accelerate slightly in 2017 after turning in the worst performance last year since the 2008 financial crisis. The 189-nation lending agency said Tuesday that the global growth should expand at a 2.7 percent annual rate this year. That is down from the bank's June forecast for 2.8 percent growth this year, but it's better than last year's 2.3 percent growth. The global economy f...

Los Angeles beats San Francisco for George Lucas museum siteLOS ANGELES — The force, it seems, was with Los Angeles. And San Francisco was left on the dark side. "Star Wars" creator George Lucas and his team were on the side of the City of Angels over the City by the Bay on Tuesday, choosing LA as the home of a museum that will showcase his life's work along with a huge collection of exhibits on film history and art. After what organizers called "extensive due diligence and deliberation," they announce...

Obama returns to White House after final Air Force One rideWASHINGTON — President Barack Obama didn't just say farewell to the nation. He said goodbye to Air Force One, too. Obama's roundtrip to his Chicago hometown, where he delivered the speech, marked the 445th time that he's flown aboard the familiar, eye-catching blue and white U.S. government airplane with the presidential insignia emblazoned on the side, according to White House press secretary Josh Earnest. The plane goes by the call sign "Air...

Taco Bell is going national with fried chicken taco shellIRVINE, Calif.— Taco Bell plans to go nationwide this month with its latest concoction: a taco with a shell made entirely out of fried chicken. Taco Bell says the shell of the Naked Chicken Chalupa is made up of all-white seasoned chicken. The rest of the taco is packed with lettuce, tomatoes, cheddar cheese and avocado ranch sauce. The fast food chain says the taco tested well in markets in Bakersfield, California, and Kansas City, Missouri, ...

A look at the stakes if US moves Israel embassy to JerusalemRAMALLAH, West Bank — The Palestinians are ringing alarm bells over Donald Trump's stated intention to relocate the U.S. Embassy in Israel to contested Jerusalem, fearing quick action once he takes office as U.S. president next week. They say an embassy move would kill any hopes for negotiating an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement and rile the region by undercutting Muslim and Christian claims to the holy city. WHY DOES IT MATTER? Jerusalem ...